Texas charter school bill would put end to nepotism

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State officials opened a financial investigation into Children First Academy of Dallas, shown at its former location. Records show that school leaders have hired multiple family members, some of them with six-figure salaries.

Texas charter schools can hire relatives of board members and superintendents. It’s a unique perk that was meant to foster innovation but has led to abuses of taxpayer dollars.

A charter school bill scheduled for debate Thursday in the Texas House would scrap that perk. Charter schools would have to follow the same anti-nepotism laws that apply to traditional school districts and other public bodies.

Critics say nepotism invites too many problems — like awarding high-paying jobs and contracts to people who have the right family connections but not the right work credentials.

“It reeks of impropriety. It does not give the sense of security the public should have with their funds and parents should have with their students,” said Lindsay Gustafson, an attorney with the Texas Classroom Teachers Association. The group represents teachers in traditional and charter schools.

Charter schools are publicly funded and run by nonprofit groups. They’re independent of the school districts where they’re located and are designed to give families more school choice for their children.

Traditional school districts cannot hire close relatives of trustees or, in many cases, of the superintendent. But charter school districts can if they meet basic academic standards.

Charter school leaders say there’s good reason they have extra leeway in hiring. Many charter schools began as small mom-and-pop operations, so state law tried to accommodate that.

Consider Advantage Academy in Dallas, founded in 1998 by an educator and pastor named Allen Beck. The charter reported five of Beck’s relatives on the payroll last year, from a son-in-law making $24,000 as a fundraising consultant to a daughter earning $115,000 as superintendent.

That daughter, Angela McDonald, said she worked for her father from the start, when the school was just his dream.

“Our whole family is committed to making this school the best it can be,” McDonald said. If the nepotism ban applied to Advantage Academy, she said, “we would lose a huge part of our organization.”

So would many other charter schools. At least 83 charter organizations out of 209 employ close relatives of board members or the superintendent, or both, according to reports filed with the Texas Education Agency.

But not all charter districts report their nepotism to the state, even though it’s required. A state report this year said that of the 10 charters revoked by the education agency in recent years, eight of them practiced nepotism. And most of those had failed to report it.

The Texas Education Agency has investigated several other family-run charter schools for possible financial abuses. Among them:

Last year, the agency found that Winfree Academy in Irving improperly steered lucrative jobs or contracts to the superintendent’s family members. In one case, a daughter earned more than $100,000 as chief financial officer despite having no college degree.

Another investigation found misuse of public funds at Burnham Wood Charter School in El Paso, where the superintendent and her daughter, an assistant superintendent, also serve on the governing board.

The agency is investigating Varnett Public School in Houston, where in one year the superintendent and her husband made more than $400,000, plus another $1.5 million for providing transportation and classroom space through companies they owned.

Agency officials also opened financial investigations into Children First Academy of Dallas and Jamie’s House Charter School in Houston. In both cases, public records show that school leaders have hired multiple family members, some of them with six-figure salaries.

The charter bill under consideration would make several changes to improve state oversight of charter schools and make it easier to shutter chronically low-performing ones. At the same time, the bill would make it easier for high-performing charter schools to expand.

David Dunn, who heads the Texas Charter Schools Association, called SB 2 “the most ambitious strengthening of charter school law since it was first written in 1995.”

Dunn said his group is comfortable with the nepotism ban for future charter schools. But they’d like a grandfather clause for current charter schools, in keeping with their grassroots spirit.

“Charters are intended to be innovative education programs and, to some extent, laboratories of experimentation,” Dunn said. Sometimes, he said, family members share the desire to make those programs a success.

Follow Holly K. Hacker on Twitter at @hollyhacker.

AT A GLANCE: Proposed changes

SB 2 proposes an overhaul of the state’s charter school law. It would:

Gradually raise the cap on the number of
open-enrollment charter schools in Texas. Current law allows up to 215 charter
operators; a single operator may run several campuses. The version of the bill
before the House would raise the cap to 275. The version approved by the Senate
would raise it to 305.

Give the Texas Education Agency the power to
close charter schools after three straight years of poor academic or financial
performance.

Allow for expedited renewal of charters with consistently high
performance.

Require annual state reports on the performance
of charter schools compared with similar traditional public schools.

Give charter schools the first option to buy or
lease school district buildings that are for sale or rent.

Make all charter schools follow the anti-nepotism laws that
apply to traditional public schools.

IN THE KNOW: Nepotism

Nepotism can give the appearance of or result in:

Conflicts of interest.

Misuse of office.

Preferential treatment.

Resentment among employees.

Hiring of unqualified employees.

The public perception that the school is not
acting in the best interest of students or the community.

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